Seeking Peace
by Ophelia's Rosemary
Summary: Everyone makes mistakes. Heiwa's existence is the result of many, having been born mute in a poor village in the middle of nowhere to an ex-brothel worker. But there's more to her life than meets the eye, even those as special as her father's. OC-insert
1. I

**Author's Notes: **_While people who put me on alert are waiting for another chapter of Look at Me Now, I thought I'd post this. I've been sitting on it for a while and I'll be honest in saying I'm not fully sure where I am going with this. But I have enough plot to post a couple of chapters and around two more chapters written out. This is a SI in the style of favorites of mine like Dream of Sunshine or Catch Your Breath, but focused on something other than Konoha and the rookies. I will say that this story takes place during Part 1, Shippuuden, and beyond, but we truly won't rejoin the main plot of Naruto until a couple of chapters in. Chapters will stay around 4k to 5k._

_This story will focus on world-building and familial bonds. Heiwa is a strange, contemplative bird. Partly the reason this is so wordy._

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><p><strong>Seeking Peace<strong>

**Chapter I**

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><p>I do not claim to be the authority on what human is, but a constant fixture in my life has been the phrase that to 'Err is Human.' Before I even turned ten, I discovered that every person you pass is the sum of successes and failures, of mistakes. Some people more than others, as I discovered about myself.<p>

You see, I am the product of many mistakes. My mere existence is one. This sounds rather bitter, does it not? I am not complaining about the mistakes that led to my existence, rather I am grateful as one could be for such a life as mine. Instead, I am relieved at the amount of errors that led to me. For example, take my conception. Product of many mistakes, some from my mother but even more from my father. My father was a man who made many mistakes in his life. But there was another error in my conception, one that was neither my mother's nor my father's.

In truth, I do not what exactly caused this error. In times where I can relax and give into whimsical thoughts, I attribute this error to some spirit world bureaucrat, neglectful in their duties to make sure a clean soul got sent into a child. Or maybe it was not a mistake and I was meant to be able to know of things I shouldn't, to have a future in my mind. That thought frightens me, that my actions were _meant_. I dislike the idea of actions being scripted, however much I am aware of external forces. I've come face to face with gods, both self-proclaimed and true.

Nevertheless, I was born with knowledge of years that had not happened yet and of things in the past that happened way before even my mother was born. And perhaps, if my theory about the bureaucrat in the spirit world is correct, that is why my vocal cords are underdeveloped. It is a nicer thought than just admitting that my mother's consumption of opiates caused my premature birth and birth defects. I am therefore mute.

I don't shed tears over my inability to speak verbally with others. In fact, I think I would be a woman of very few words if I did. My face certainly has been chided for the frequent lack of expression that it gives off. I am not someone of expressions. The mistakes I make are generally that it seems I am more apathetic than I truly am.

Back to the theme of mistakes, many people have said that my name was very much a mistake. That my mother should have named me after something cold or hard or maybe something about beauty. I disagree with this.

I am named after a wish, a desire, and a concept. Something countless have strived for, died for. I have seen lifeblood shed over this wish, shed some myself. And after living through a war, I can only say that I have personally achieved this wish and it is truly a worthy one.

Peace.

What an idea!

I do not know if everlasting piece is a child's dream or a possibility, but peace with one's own self, one's own actions, that is achievable but very hard. And I have acquired it. And this is the story of how.

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><p>With strange images and words behind my eyes, I entered this world a sick baby, watching everything with grey eyes that would later darken into coal. I did not cry nor attempt to, not unnoticed by the doctor attending to me.<p>

I didn't grow up in the place I was born, I couldn't, but I shall explain that in a minute.

My childhood home, as brief as it was, is in the rocky canyons that make up the border with Wind. The villages of Ame and Suna routinely fight over this small border for their respective daimyo, so the people on it truly have to change the name of the country they belong to each time a war happens. Small skirmishes between the shinobi happen often but we common folk ignored it. There were many ways to die in this world, and getting involved with shinobi happened to lead quickly to the painful ones.

There was one 'decent' town on the border. Saboten, the town I was conceived in. _Cactus_. Decent by population size, not by anyone's moral values. The region itself was a 'rain-shadow', rocky and dry as the rain that filled up the rest of country fell on the other side of the mountain and not on us. But though dry heat was common, we were nowhere as bad off as the people who lived below in Kaze no Kuni. There the rocky dry ground turned into harsh desert.

Several days' travel from Saboten along the border was a tiny hamlet, not even a village that had been set up on a drying creek bed when the creek still held water. There were maybe seven houses that still had people. Due to the isolation of the settlement, we had neither running water (except in one home) nor electricity. We collected what we could in our wells and survived off the livestock we could spare. My home was a harsh and poor place, filled with people who had lived through too much, but even among such prickly people one could see a sort of comradery.

Some of us also had a sense of humor. It was such a small place that we escaped any census or tax man that would call on us and thus the hamlet had no name. Truthfully, each house and the land I recognized as belonging to the hamlet belonged to the oldest resident of the hamlet, who had bought it all dirt cheap after the Second Shinobi war. The man in question, a man to this day I refer to as my 'Shishou', referred to it as the 'Hovel' and so we did as well.

The house I grew up in had two bedrooms, one for my mother's friend and renter of the house, and one for my mother and myself.

We came to live in the Hovel when my mother was thrown out from her brothel and then couldn't find work in the rest of the _Hanamachi_, or the flower district, because of me. Brothels were certainly no place for a newborn, especially one that looked like it would need as much care as I. By coincidence, another woman from the Hanamachi, a prostitute past her prime from a less classy brothel named Rei, was intent on retiring. Shishou didn't understand why exactly Rei picked the Hovel to retire of all places, besides the fact it was cheap, but Rei took to living in the Hovel well. Like my mother, she had been born from peasants who worked the land, which is why I guess they took to each other.

My mother accepted and 'retired' as well, despite legally being nineteen. Legally I say, because she in fact had me at the age of sixteen, and had begun working her trade at the age of thirteen. She didn't fully retire; while she still could, she would disappear for periods of a month or two to go back to Saboten and work in Hanamachi. She would send money and things to Rei and me, and then return with a cart full of gifts, ready to tell me stories and whisper gossip to Rei.

The Hovel wasn't the worst place to retire. Two miles away, a field of poppies dotted the countryside which is why I believe my mother moved there. Easy and free access to what she needed to feel better.

I do not know the name of the particular affliction that caused my mother to need the tea she'd make for herself, or opium when she could get it, but I do know occasionally she would have tremors and her joints wouldn't move. It was easy to tell my mother was in pain. With such sickly people, Rei wasn't expecting much of us.

Rei told me that when she first saw me bundled up in my mother's arms, silent as the grave, she told my mother that I wouldn't live to see a month. This was, of course, a mistake.

I would never speak a word despite what my mother had hoped, and the doctor she had visited before setting off to the Hovel assured her of this. I was mute and nothing could be done. My mother was upset, she had wished that unlike her I would live to the fullest of my potential. Still, she never dissuaded me from trying things despite my inability to speak. My mother was one of those people who believed in thriving despite adversity and in spite of it. Rei was the same.

And it was with two world-weary woman in a hamlet full of other broken people that I, Heiwa, grew up.

"Heiwa! _Teeth_!"

I am three and reach my hands for my tooth brush and the small bucket of water my mother has procured for me. Kaa-san has a fixation with teeth.

I suppose I should describe my mother. She was not the biggest beauty in the world. What she did have striking about her was her skin. My mother was translucent in the dark, like I. Think of someone pale and then bleach them and you would have my mother and me. With the sun shining down on us often, my mother and I would have our faces dotted with freckles. Sunscreen was not a priority; toothpaste was.

Besides her pale skin, my mother's hair and eyes were dark. Her hair would hang down limply on her shoulders, curling lightly. From far away, and if the freckles were covered with enough makeup, my mother had a noble look about her, as if she was the daughter of some daimyo. It was an impression that was not made to last. My mother trained herself to smile and talk with barely opening her mouth, ashamed of her rotted teeth and the stumps left behind. She holds her sleeve in front of her mouth while eating and forces me to brush twice a day. Rei finds it funny that we can't afford electricity but my mother stacks up on toothpaste with chemicals in it that will stop the rotting of my teeth.

"I won't have my daughter face the same kind of fate I have, Rei." Kaa-san replies to the teasing.

I brush my teeth as told. I am an obedient child, reserved and thoughtful. My mother worries little about me running off as there is no one but the Hovel for miles. Still, I explore, curious about the world around me.

Rei chortles and rubs my hair, darker than even my mother's. Rei was once a beauty, as she likes to say, but the Rei I grew up with had a sour and puckered face. Rei is tanned, her face all angles and cheekbones. Her hair and eyes are brown and her teeth are in worse condition than my mother's. She has had her 4 top front teeth removed and when I once wrote her a question asking why, she laughed and said, "For better insertion!"

Growing up with two prostitutes ensured that I was not only not 'unaware' about sexual matters, even at a young age, I viewed them as interesting as one views the weather. I still do to this day. However, the full gravity of that statement wouldn't hit me until I was older.

Today is a special day. Rei is barely literate, unlike my mother, but my mother is one again setting off to bring us money home. It is the old man who owns the Hovel, Kojiro, who will teach me letters and writing so I may actually learn to communicate with others beyond bare hand gestures and the few facial expressions I am able to muster. Rei-san says they don't work as I am afflicted with something called "resting-bitch-face-syndrome" which I obviously must have gotten from my father.

"You'll be alright with Kojiro-jii." My mother says, pulling me into her lap so she can run a comb through my locks. I close my eyes and enjoy the feeling of my scalp being scratched and my mother's flowery scent. Her lips press on the back of my head as I lean back, calm in my mother's arms.

"She'll be alright. That old geezer complained when we decided he'd teach her." Rei entered a tirade filled with exaggerated hand gestures. "He said he didn't want to be bothered with no brat and left alone to his peace and quiet. As if Heiwa can be anything but quiet. Or peaceful." I open my eyes to acknowledge my name being spoken by Rei. Kojiro is a crotchety old man in his late sixties, with grey hair and a slightly ruddy beard. He is an imposing figure at the weekly meetings we hold at the hamlet, especially when you realize his left leg is wooden.

There are many broken people in the Hovel. Kojiro was just the first.

As the only child in the Hovel, I am looked upon with fondness by most, not because of my muteness, but because I was a precocious three year-old capable of things older children could be and I did errands well and without complaint. When it came to educating me, many people were quite insistent on that it was done properly, as I was the 'future' of the settlement. Kojiro was too old to work and had obviously received formal education the extent of none of us knew or accurately guessed at, so it was his duty.

Kojiro was a mystery to the Hovel. He had invited several people to buy up the land because he had nothing to do with the empty houses but other than that, it was like he came from the sky. Due to the scars we could glimpse on his body and the wooden leg, it was whispered amongst the hamlet that he was a mercenary, perhaps even a _ronin_, though the actual _ronin_ in the Hovel would argue against this.

Whatever Kojiro had done before he founded the Hovel, he was no samurai.

Even more mysterious was his house. He didn't let the hamlet inside, instead going out to the few benches we put in the middle of the hamlet as a common ground when he needed human interaction, no matter how much he swore he didn't. But he was furious when anyone came near it. And yet, here he was opening the doors to me.

It spoke of how isolated the common folk of the Hovel were that none recognized the fluidity of his movement, so agile for a man past sixty-five summers, or how he would tense at the slightest movement or noise askew. I, at three, had yet to encounter one of his creed so I had no name for it. But I watched him eagerly.

I didn't understand he was watching me right back.

"He also told me to tell you that if she's an idiot, he's not dealing with her."

My mother laughs at this, a soft and airy thing.

"Also something I don't think Heiwa will have a problem with. Look at her, restless at three."

I am not squirming in my mother's grasp, so it makes little sense to me that I am 'restless'. I do not yet understand it is my hunger for knowledge that my mother is referring to.

We stand up and my mother, despite not feeling that well this morning, takes me by the hand to walk me to Kojiro's. We are greeted along the way by several neighbors. Despite my mother and Rei's occupations, they are well-liked by the hamlet. Mostly because everyone knows that if someone spoke "shit" as Rei would say, she'd probably take our shovel and dig them an early grave.

Kojiro meets us in front of the house, unshaven face looking completely unhappy with this situation. My mother gives her wide, close-lipped smile before ushering me on to him.

"Ohaiyo, Kojiro-san."

He gives my mother a stack of papers and a bag full of money.

"Purchases and things I need sent in Saboten. You're going there soon, yes?" He asks gruffly.

My mother nods.

"Kiminori-kun is riding off with his wares tonight and will take me most of the way. I'll send what you need at first opportunity." She takes his papers and bows to him, eyeing me. "Take care of my Heiwa, Kojiro-san."

Kojiro grunts. My mother smiles before waving goodbye at me and leaves. My new teacher turns to look at me and searches my face. He seems not to find whatever he is looking for and limps back to his house.

Kojiro's house is nowhere as mysterious as I thought it would be. From first glance, it is devoid of personal artifacts. Unlike the personal trinkets that litter my home, Kojiro's home seems to have little of those. What it does have is scrolls, and drawn ones at that. Scrolls filled with calligraphy are hung up over the house and I can see why I would want to learn to write from Kojiro. It is neater than everyone expected, with Kojiro being an old bachelor. Things look quite orderly.

"Had to loosen my traps so you don't get slaughtered. You better be grateful, little girl."

I blink. Traps?

My attention is called away from the strangeness of that statement by a woodcarving in the living room, one that looks quite old. It shows several people surrounding what seems to be a circle and my eyes are immediately drawn to it. Kojiro's as well, and his gaze hardens.

"I'd tell you not to ask me many questions, but I'm sure you can't really do that anyway, so just sit down."

He passes me a scroll with figures on it.

"_Hiragana._"

I nod and look over them.

I have noticed that the people who proclaim wanting to be alone the most are usually the ones most desperate in need of company. Perhaps unnerved by my silence, even as a mute girl, Kojiro would talk even while not specifically instructing me. Mostly about calligraphy.

It became apparent in the first few hours of instruction that not only was this coming easy to me, that I picked up things very quickly. This was not news to me. Rei had last month exclaimed over how nice my stitching had gotten, and how quick. However, to Kojiro it just gave incentive to study me further.

His eyes traced over my features often in those early days. It took me a while to realize he was trying to pry my ancestry from them. At three I didn't particularly who care my father was. I knew I had one but I also knew enough to figure out he was a _customer_, and thus had little place in my life. This would change the moment I was thrust into my father's world, into our family's path.

"You're a clever child." Kojiro told me at the end of the first day. I looked to him and focused my eyes, not responding physically. People repeated that to me often, but it was the first time I had heard that statement meant as a question. My eyes were drawn to what Kojiro was doing. His brush trailed a scroll, drawing a beautiful pattern that was unreadable to me. He stopped after scroll hand reached the end and then, knowing I was watching, perhaps anticipating it, he made the scroll glow.

Not many things can make my eyes widen or give me a shocked look on my face. My first encounter with chakra was one of the things that could, and did. The brush strokes glowed orange and then faded back to black. Kojiro's reddish-brown eyes looked at me, to see if I had any reaction. I was deeply fascinated and gestured so by pointing to scroll and shrugging. I wanted to see what that glowing meant, what it did.

Kojiro chuckled and took the brush, placing it on the scroll. He then touched it once more, causing the brush strokes to glow and suddenly the brush disappeared and the scroll rolled itself up. Another touch and it unrolled itself, with the brush appearing back with a poof.

It took me a minute to analyze what I seen and I fixed Kojiro with a new light in my eyes, with understanding. I knew what he was, even having only heard bedtime stories about people like him. And so I mouthed the words I'd speak if I could.

"_Please teach me."_

Kojiro must have read my lips because he nodded.

And that is how I became a kunoichi.

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><p>He didn't fully train me at first. I was, after all, only three and there to learn how to read and write, which I definitely learned how to do on my own time as well as his. But once lessons were finished, and with me lessons were always finished quickly, he would take out books that hadn't seen the light of day in decades and use the pictures to show me small exercises. He started small, describing what chakra was and how it functioned. But Kojiro was so well versed in chakra and how it worked that his explanations would outdo any others I would hear later in life.<p>

Every afternoon before Rei would come and walk me back home, he'd have me practice controlling it. And that was the first week, because it became apparently I not only had good reserves but had some talent at controlling them.

As the playing card stuck to my forehead, Kojiro paced around his living room, muttering as usual.

"I could tell, see, that you came from shinobi stock. I might even have a hunch or two about what family you come from, with those facial features."

At my inquisitive look, he elaborated.

"Your mother's eyes are a dark brown. Your eyes are black. Your hair is darker than hers and it spikes, rather than curls. Those eyes have no pupils. You might think your features common, but I've seen looks like that of yours' on the battlefield, and if you happen to be from that wretched clan, your life won't have a moment of peace."

It was then that my interest in my father awoke. Kojiro seemed nervous about the subject, muttering "It's been four years, there's plenty of chance it happened before..." but I got nothing straight out of him.

By the end of the first month my literacy skills were building faster each day and I was able to stick several objects on me with my chakra control. Not only that, but I'd sit around and practice my hiragana drawings while having the cards stick to me, drawing sighs from Kojiro. He tended to observe me working and filled the silence with talk. Perhaps my muteness unnerved him or maybe he realized that even I could talk I tended to not say much about anything.

"Just my luck, you're probably a genius."

I cock my head as if asking a question.

"You know what's bad about being a genius? Your type doesn't live long, or lives in such a way that living isn't worth it. You burn out before twenty, or end up dead because people expect so much of you that end up taking it all in and expecting more from yourself than you can actually handle."

And then my master sighed, sitting down.

"And you, little genius girl, are going to have to fight to live because once the world figures you out, everyone will be out for your flesh. People stronger than me are going to try their hardest, and not only with kunai but with words. You think you'll still be here in ten years? I'm sure you'll be running for your life from some hunter unit somewhere."

"You'll end up like me, girl."

I looked down, unsure of how to react to my teacher's ranting. I could tell that something happened to him but the prospect of having a home destroyed felt alien to me. I briefly closed my eyes to picture our house on fire, or rubble in place of the Hovel, but I could only see people doing their jobs as always. The weary faces, some lined with dirt, cracking smiles at our meetings. The way we'd vote every on every major decision. The few times we decided to make music at the meetings. This was all I knew.

Kojiro cracked his knuckles before continuing.

"Can't decide if it is best thing or the worst thing you're not blind. On one hand you wouldn't have to struggle for life, on the other; a blind Uchiha."

'_Uchiha.'_

'_But brother, that clan is cursed!'_

'_To test my capacity...'_

As that name was spoken, my mind reacted and sent me images and sound, strewn together like a film. I never understood where the images exactly came from, but it felt like I had watched them at some point, though not as a presence in them. Odd. I was puzzled over the significance of this and whether I should try and mention it to Kojiro through writing. But something stopped me inside, and that's because I knew even at three years old what had just happened to me was not normal, not even by shinobi standards.

I set aside the clips for later analyzing, when Kojiro wasn't watching my reactions like a hawk and looked up with him with wide eyes.

"How do you write it?" I wrote. He took the pen and paper from me and wrote the name out, and with some afterthought added my own.

"Uchiha Heiwa"

My mother had no clan name or surname. Many people would make up their own. It felt strange seeing that name, as I knew that I would be what Rei called 'a bastard'. But there was something comforting in the idea I had a family, a place beyond the Hovel. I never hoped for anything more than the Hovel, nothing more than the comfort of my mother's arms. But it looks like the world was expecting me to go beyond. It was a nice thought, thinking I'd have family along the way.

_If only I'd known._

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><p><strong>Let me know what you think please!<strong>


	2. II

**AN: Not much to say but here is chapter 2, which still is more description about the world she's living in. Of course I had to put in a few markers to let you know what exactly the time period is. Thanks to all those who decided to follow and fave and Poppy Grave Dreams for reviewing and adding this story to her community named Well-Written Disabled Characters. Much thanks to whoever added this story to **The Archive for Self Inserts and Original Characters.** Reviews mean so much to me and yes I accept criticism. Once again, thank you!**

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><p><strong>Chapter II<strong>

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><p>Weeks went by quickly. I spent my time home unbothered by Rei as I looked over kanji and hiragana and sums. Once in a while, Kojiro would slip me a paper on ninjutsu amongst the homework he assigned me, and I would relish it. I soaked up what I learned like a sponge, whether it was the history, told from his point of view of course, or the explanations about fuuinjutsu, which was what the sealing thing he did earlier was called.<p>

He didn't try to physically train me until my mother came home. I ran out to greet my mother with pen and paper, ready to talk to her for the first time. She was thrilled. Our first conversation consisted of very basic vocabulary, much more basic than what I wanted to use. But it was enough and I will forever treasure the look of pride on my mother's face as she watched make character after character, focused on talking to her.

She bought me many things from Saboten, books being the main thing. These I eagerly devoured as my literacy improved. Rei praised my reading, saying I took to it like a fish to water. I was a natural.

It was then that I noticed a bit of apprehension in my mother's eyes amidst the pride she felt for me. It would happen each time I appeared to do exceptionally well in something, whether running through the hamlet quickly (using just a tiny bit of unnoticeable chakra to enhance my speed) or climbing the trees we had with ease, or how quick I was at sums when I was taught them.

It pained me because I forever wanted to be the light in my mother's eyes. There was nothing more that I loved than my gentle, sickly mother. And so I resolved to cling to her as often as I could while she would bring out the pretty things she would wear in the town and her makeup kits, teaching me how to apply it.

"Don't scrunch your forehead, Heiwa. You don't want wrinkles." My mother admonished as she rubbed a white powder into my face. I nod, keeping my forehead smooth for my mother's work. She had decided in the morning that it would be fun to play dress up with me since I had no classes and got out her beauty sets. Today I was to be a _maiko_, an apprentice geisha. To say that my mother looked up to geisha, or the few in the Hanamachi district in Saboten, would be an understatement. With the way my mother sold herself, she would try and appear as a refined woman often, something that attracted well-paying customers. But Geisha were the **real deal**, not even prostitutes. My mother comes home telling me stories about how she would watch the _maiko_ perform in the squares, or what beautiful things they wore.

The freedom to be beautiful, that mere company was paid for, without even allowing a touch, my mother wanted most of all. Not all her regular customers necessarily wanted anything carnal from my mother, some were just lonely and wanted company, too afraid to seek it elsewhere. But there was a transaction there, one that my mother just accepted as a fact of life. But not as a fact of mine.

"Heh, you have my widow's peak." She giggled, rubbing my face and pinching my cheeks while she had the opportunity. I smiled as best as I could at my mother's (beautiful) laughing face.

"Pity she's mute or you could apprentice her to one of the houses." Rei came in and sat down with us to watch my mother work. If my mother was an artist with a makeup brush, Rei was one with clothes. Being retired from prostitution, Rei now made her trade as a tailor and it was she would sew clothes for us and the rest of the Hovel. I was as fascinated by her abilities as I was by my mother's. Fortunately, Rei seemed to delight in dressing me as much as my mother liked painting me, so they ended up working together to have me looking like a porcelain doll quite often. I didn't protest as I like being fussed over in this way as much as I like shinobi lessons.

My mother moves on to my shaping my eyebrow, sighing as she does so.

"Don't say that, Rei, she could dance if she learned. And don't _they_ fantasize over having a quiet, demure woman? Heiwa can be that." I nod because I certainly can be quiet, though the meaning of demure escapes me.

Rei snorts. "As a wife maybe, but that's the reason they seek _us_ out. For some passion in their lives. Aa, Heiwa-chan, you up for being a wife? We'll have to wait till you're sixteen but if you want the best ring you have to start early." And then she tossed her hair and cocked her hip, causing my mother's sleeve to fly to her mouth because she fell into a giggling fit. Rei did some sort of strutting cat walk around the room, sashaying her buttocks.

"Come on, Heiwa-chan, let me teach you all about getting married to a good man. I am such an expert, it is a wonder I am not married myself!" She fluffed up my hair affectionately, before turning a more serious gaze at my mother, who was busy rolling her eyes.

"It's not too early to plan for her future, Mizuno. Especially with her being mute. She'll have a tougher time because of it and you know it. She needs something solid and soon. We don't want her shiftless and aimless like we used to be." My mother started frowning at that and I went back into her arms as a way to comfort her, careful not to smudge her work. Her hand weaves through my hair instantly and I feel like a cat of some sort and wish I can purr.

"I know, Rei, but I don't want to part with her. If there was a way I could go to the town to work and live with her at the same time, I would, just so she could go to a school." Rei shook her head.

"You know as well as I do they won't take a kid of ours'. I'm sure Kojiro will teach her enough to make sure she could do enough. Look at how she reads those books you bought her! No, what I'm saying is she needs a _trade_. Her stitching is great, give me a couple years and we can bring her to a good tailor and she'll be set for an apprenticeship. No walking the streets, no uncertainty. A career."

My mother's fingers tighten in my hair and I can see that perhaps she dislikes this idea, though it seems quite practical to me. I can't picture myself sewing in ten or twenty years, however, much like I couldn't picture the hovel destroyed, or even being a _maiko_. It feels like there's something else out there for me.

My mother sighs and turns me around, returning back to painting me.

"We'll figure that out in two years. She has plenty of time to be a child."

Rei nods and sits down with us to watch as my mother transforms me into a doll-like figure. By the time the sun sets, I am flitting back into the house after running around the Hovel showing off my makeup and the kimono Rei forced me into to see my mother shaking on the floor. Even at three and eleven months, I understand that my mother is sick and that the milky poppy tea she drinks makes her feel better, so I carry it over to her as she drops her head on the tatami mat in pain.

A shaking hand took the cup from me.

"Thank you." She said, spilling the liquid into her mouth. After a few minutes she stops shaking but her eyes are already drowsy from the liquid, as if she is ready to sleep in a moment's notice. I place a blanket over her body and turn to leave before my mother's hand grasps mine firmly and pulled me back.

"Heiwa."

I turn my head to look at my mother.

"Don't listen. Don't listen to anyone who says you can't do something. You can. You can do anything. You deserve more than this," and my mother took a shaky breath before continuing, "You hear me, Heiwa?"

I mouth a yes to her before kissing her on the cheek. As my mother falls into sleep, I wonder if I am wrong to just want to stay here forever with my family.

* * *

><p>I relay the conversation to Kojiro as best as I can through my limited written vocabulary, causing him to shake his head. He and I sit on a bench in his yard as I slowly go through the old shinobi textbook he had apparently salvaged from the destruction of his country. My fingers trace the circle on the spine, the same as the one in the living room. The textbook's origins explain much about my mysterious neighbor, but for now he keeps silent about his origins. But as an intuitive child, I feel like he'll tell me on his own.<p>

"I will never understand women." He mumbles. I'm not sure what this means, nor am I particularly interested in general statements so I don't ask like I usually do when I want explanations.

"But I'd rather you not tell your mom about me training you just yet. Let's see if we can keep this up until you're six." I close the book, surprised at the length of the training.

"Why so long?" I write.

"Silly girl," He says and I bristle inwardly. "Your mother had many reasons for coming here. I'm sure one of them is to hide you in a place no one would look for. At that age, I'll feel just a tiny bit better actually training you far from here. As it is now, you're barely out of the cradle."

I suck my teeth angrily at that.

"And you're one foot in the grave, Shishou."

Kojiro seems especially amused at the prospect of dying of old age.

"Ah, brat, I am still so very young. If only you knew. Now come on, you finished those pages I asked you to read, right? We're doing something different." And he takes me by the hand and leads me to the back of the house, which faces nothing but empty and dry land for miles. I look up at him curiously.

"Congratulations, little girl. I trust you enough to let you learn wall-walking, the next step in assuring that perhaps on the day I teach you ninjutsu, you don't screw up horribly. Pat yourself on the back and all that." I don't pat myself and Kojiro moves on, sweeping his messy grey locks from his face as he does so.

"You see my house girl? You're going to walk up onto the roof." I eye him with distaste. I can see trying to use the windows to climb up, but I can't even reach the windows with my lack of height. I try to convey that I am three to him, but he walks behind me and bends down to touch my shoulder.

"Figure it out, Heiwa. What have you learned so far from me that you can you use?" he says softly.

I frown, entering a state of thought as I eye the grey building in front of me. It takes a second, but I realize he is obviously intending that I build on the chakra exercises we have been using.

While the solution is at the tip of my tongue, images come unbidden of what I need to do because I already knew, already saw this. It is not a house they are stepping on, but trees. Large trees that I would have to travel for days to find because fauna of the nature does not grow here. I shake the sight of a pink-haired girl whispering to a blond boy. Whoever these people are, it is not as important as my master's task at hand.

My legs are too short to just run up as the teenagers in my vision did. Instead I funnel chakra both to my hands and feet, like I was attempting to do the card sticking exercise again. As I approach the house with my hands ready to place flat against the wall, a trickle of anxiety swells in me. I'm tiny, what would happen if I fall. A tap of the foot reminds me that Kojiro is watching me and I hope he would catch me if I did slip. It seemed unfair to me that if someone like those kids in my memories were learning this at twelve or thirteen, then why I was I expected to do something similar?

Maybe Kojiro was right and apparently being a 'genius' sucked. Too much was expected from them. At least I could guarantee that it was unlikely I'd ever expect more from myself than I can handle. I thought that way until I managed to get halfway up the wall using hands and knees. Even lost in thought, it came so easy. Shakily, I pulled away one hand from the wall, channeling the chakra into the knees and soles. I moved my leg inch by inch until it was soundly on the wall. Quickly I let go of my hand and instantly did the same for the other leg, channeling more chakra.

'_Stick. Stick!' _

I could almost feel myself teeter off the wall with each second that went by as I redoubled my focus on sticking to the wall. My stomach gave a strange lurch and I was sure it was that gravity thing I heard about weighing down on me as I tried to defy it by standing upright horizontally around ten feet in the air.

"Oi, girl! I said the roof, not the second floor!" Kojiro's voice didn't have to carry up much higher, tall as he was, but with the progress I made he felt farther away than perhaps four or five feet. My stomach gave another groan at being suspended like this and I inhaled trying to quiet it down. How did ninja do this? How the hell did they stand upside down or do this while running? Wouldn't the blood rush to their heads? What was it about shinobi that made them superhuman?

I slowly walked my way up the rooftop, finding a place to sit by a chimney. A poof of smoke sounded and I watched in awe as Kojiro appeared, out of smoke and thin air.

"Shunshin." He said, smiling down at me. "Good girl. I'm glad you were able to get this in one go. You're really something, Heiwa-chan." His hands patted hair and I closed my eyes, enjoying the gesture. Kojiro was a prickly person, but there was something so likable about him that I couldn't help but enjoy his praise as he gave it. His hands wrapped around me and picked me up easily. I clung to his arms as he did the fast-technique again. However, it wasn't a teleportation technique like I had thought at first, just a very quick movement. I barely even noticed before we were back on the ground but I felt the wind in my hair telling me we had traveled, however briefly.

"Eh, Heiwa-chan? Shake your head if you want to go back studying, nod if you want to see something cool."

I mustered as much disdain as I could for this question and tried to let it show in my face. Of course I'd want to see something cool. Kojiro's lightly wrinkled face stretched as he laughed at the look I had just given him.

"Guess you are a kid after all. Hard to tell if you weren't such a tiny thing. Hold tight." And we were off again, at a speed I never knew existed. The old man beside me held me tightly as he ran off from the compound. Within minutes we were out of the Hovel and dashing towards the place mother would send me to pick poppies. I realized he was augmenting his speed with chakra and suddenly all the questions I had asked myself were answered. Chakra. That magical substance that allowed little girls to walk on walls and old men to run a mile in ten minutes. What else could it do? How much could I use?

The landscape was blur as we sped through flower fields and went somewhere I had never explored, feeling it was too far from the house. I hung on to his collar and turned my head behind me as he began jumping off rocks. Past the fields, the landscape got drier and more desolate, becoming more like the other side of the border, Kaze no Kuni. Part of the border itself was marked by the mountain range we lived on ending in cliffs and canyons.

Or that is what Rei told me. I'd never seen these formations for myself until Kojiro and ninja skills had us almost flying over land to see it. We landed on the edge of a cliff, Kojiro setting me down a couple of feet away from danger. I eyed this new space with wonder because it looked like a different world. While the Hovel was a constant brown and beige, with some foliage occasionally (very few trees) this had even less foliage than that. What it did have was layers and layers of multicolored sharp rock. I crawled a few feet forward to see better and sighed as I realized I couldn't see all the way down.

Kojiro sat down beside me.

"I know what you're thinking. Amazing, right? A mighty river ran through here at some point, slowly grinding away rock for thousands of years. I like to come here to gain some perspective."

Red-orange canyon as far as the eye could see and beyond that. It made me feel so small, not that I had much trouble with that. I took out my paper and pen from my pocket and wrote the feeling down for Kojiro. He took it and read it before handing the paper back to me, nodding his head.

"Of course you feel that way, Heiwa. No matter how powerful shinobi can be, they can never hope to match something like this, something as inhuman as nature and time. If young people ever just stopped and looked at the world around you, at these kinds of feats, there'd be less haste to die in some stupid war. Sights like this canyon make us feel _mortal_."

"But you are still young…" He added. "You have yet to learn about all that." I got a strange feeling, akin to getting another vision that made me uncomfortable because I realized I did know what he was explaining, that somehow I knew what mortality was. That line of thought was frightening, so I pursued another question.

"You make it sound like someone tried to make something like this canyon."  
><span>

"There's a place in Hi no Kuni. A valley and river that was created in the last century by Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara, couple of years before I was born. They fought each other and ended up changing the landscape completely. But as marvelous as it was to see the work of the two Kami no Shinobi, it's nothing like this."

I was about to agree, for I understood it was a lesson of humility my master was trying to teach me but all of a sudden I felt like I was swimming, no, drowning in memories. The blonde boy from earlier fighting with another boy, pale and black haired. His face. Almost like… That boy turned into a man, and his eyes are red and frightening and so…familiar. He summons a fox and the other boy has turned into a man as well, with long dark hair and so much wood.

I cradle my head in my hands from the intensity of the images. It feels like I am witnessing a battle inside my own mind and it carries me away from my surroundings. Could this be the battle Kojiro was talking about?

'_Why am I seeing this?'_ I wonder as the wood man stabs the other.

"Heiwa!"

I did not realize I was being poked. I turn to meet Kojiro's gaze and the old man looks very worried. I relax my face, lowering my eyes so he doesn't spot the confusion in them. It is a good thing I cannot speak because I feel I would have said something about what I had seen if I could.

"Don't daydream when someone is talking to you, little girl!" The worry is replaced with anger, causing me to look up. I rather him angry than worried. I scribble once more.

"I am sorry, I was just imagining such a battle."

He takes the paper and sighs. "I'm sure your imagination won't do any justice. You want to hear of a real battle, then let me tell you of…"

Kojiro's stories are thrilling, and I listen with rapt attention as he tells me of the many battles he had fought with his unit back in his country. None of them elicit the same out of body experience as the mention of Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara, and for this I am grateful as the experience is quite disorientating.

Kojiro tells me of why he brought me here, besides as a place to tell me war stories. The cliffs, he assures me, are a great place to do training, and now that I took my steps in chakra control, he will begin slowly adjusting my reflexes. Of course, he says, I will be limited because of my age and size, but it is best to begin soon.

And then he tells me what I am going to be doing and my stomach _flips_.

* * *

><p>It was alright at first. First it was just walking with a book on my head that I had to keep from falling off. Then I was to walk with a bucket full of water, something much more challenging than a book. And If I spilled, I failed.<p>

But none of this compared to the rocks. My wonderful master first would teach me reflexes and evasion by throwing balloons filled with water, causing me end up sopping wet and quite displeased. Luckily, the dry heat in the canyon makes sure that I arrive home without any indications I am being pelted with rubber balls filled with water. But the rocks, well, they leave bruises.

He makes sure to pick smooth pebbles, nothing with a sharp edge, but they hurt even though he is throwing with as little force as possible. That thought does nothing for the aches I receive when those blasted pebbles collide with my body, and I wish I could yell at him each time they do. Instead I inwardly yell at myself for not being able to dodge. It is lucky my mother had gone on another trip to the town, otherwise I would have had explaining to do about the callouses and bruises my body has achieved over the past few months. Rei, unlike my mother, lets me bath by myself whereas my mother insists on dressing me and bathing me. Thankfully, by the time my mother returns, there's little left of them because I've learned not to let them hit me.

It is still grueling for someone my age, but Kojiro tells me this was standard training when he was very, very little and earlier. Back when there were little villages and it was every clan for themselves. I get the feeling no one lived very long if three year olds were expected to be able to dodge projectiles.

My literacy at this point surpasses Rei's and much of the Hovels'. It is with pride, then, that I write a long letter to my mother all by myself. She replies with amusement, stating that at first she thought that it had been Kojiro who wrote such an 'adult' and formal letter for me, but then she realized that the handwriting was not only different, but that Kojiro would never sound like me in a letter, even if I dictated it. Apparently amused with my writing skills, she showed them to her friends in the district and my nickname is the little princess, since apparently I write like one.

I must admit that the reason why my letters were so formal was because I couldn't truly tell me my mother what was happening with me, and so I filled them with complex phrases and things that I thought were polite to talk about. I tried to breach the subject once, through asking whether she really felt that apprenticing to a tailor was the best idea for me, but my mother replied that she was holding off on that decision, but did inquire whether I wanted to attend a school as my writing was so advanced perhaps something scholarly could be made of me.

Kojiro snorted at that one and told me to just nod my head while this lasted and wait things out. You don't choose the ninja life, he once said, but it chooses you. And I was happiest when learning things about the shinobi lifestyle, when discussing chakra, and when watching Kojiro make seals (He refused to teach me sealing until I was older).

* * *

><p>But the ninja world was a dangerous place, as I would learn as I was about to turn four. Kojiro and I were training my reflexes once more, having moved beyond merely dodging pebbles to blocking them with a stick. My short arms could only do so much, so we'd rest repeatedly in the hot summer sun. Kojiro found the idea that he, as a natural redhead, only tanned while I, dark in all but skin, freckled amusing.<p>

We rested for a moment, passing back a flask of water my shishou had brought when our little sessions were intruded upon. A man- no, teenage boy jumped up from another cliff, landing in front of us with his hand on his hip. I grew curious as the man was obviously a ninja, but unlike Kojiro, he was wearing a flak vest of some sort, beige in coloring. His hair was wrapped in a blue bandana.

I noticed a thirsty look in his eyes as he eyed the flask in my lap. Kojiro was up on his feet immediately, kunai in hand. I didn't even know he carried one. It glinted in the sun, a shining promise of harm to the shinobi youth.

"What the hell do you want?" He spat angrily at the shinobi presumably from Suna (beige if from Suna, grey from Ame, Green from Konoha, red from Iwa, and white from Komo was the little song Kojiro had taught me).

The boy laughed, a cruel sound making Kojiro tense even more. I noticed a slight shift as he positioned himself in front of me, something which made me feel grateful. Kojiro would defend me, shield me from danger. With how hands on his training was, I didn't want think that he'd ever throw me into battle, especially when the opponent was a trained ninja with at least ten years on me.

"Ah, Jii-chan, don't point things you don't know how to use. Someone might get a little hurt." He smiled at us both, but it didn't reach his eyes, which looked more tired than anything.

"You see, Jii-chan, I was just passing by and happened to see someone training a little girl on the border. Looks a little suspicious, don't it?" He glanced at me, probably to see how quickly he could pass Kojiro to take the flask away. I tightened my grip on it.

"Maybe to you, runt. We're on our side of the border, you dolt. And I suggest you keep to yours' unless you want me to call border patrol on you." threatened Kojiro. The boy gave Kojiro a once over.

"I don't think so old man. There's no patrol for days and you're not wearing anything from a village. Strange, I don't think I'd run into nukenin training babies. Where'd you steal the toddler from?"

"I'm retired, brat. Now I suggest you go and leave my granddaughter and I alone." _'Granddaughter?'_

The boy looked like he didn't buy it. Grinning he looked at me and shook his head. "Your grankid? Don't look anything alike to me. Still," and he addressed me. "Little girl, give me the flask you got there or your grandaddy won't live to see you grow up."

Out of nowhere a feeling spiked. It felt focused, determined, and full of _intent._ Then the second it was there – and I realized it was Kojiro's doing, then the next second the shinobi from Suna was on the floor, with his face being pressed into rock by Kojiro's non-wooden foot with his arm in a hold.

"Don't talk to her. Idiot. You could have asked for the damn flask. What are you, a green chunin of some sort? Got separated from your squad?"

The boy mumbled something into the dirt before yelling as Kojiro twisted his arm.

"Fool. You're not worth the promotion they gave you." The boy's groans quieted down eventually and he started glaring angrily at the two of us.

"Now what to do with you?" Kojiro looked at me for a second, but I shook my head and raised the flask. Sending the shinobi back to the desert without water was a death sentence but the Hovel must remain as unknown as possible so none of the residents are harmed from the attention called on it. Kojiro raised a reddish-grey eyebrow at my offering of the flask and sighed.

"Really? That's too nice for a dolt like him."

I made a sign of sighing over that but Kojiro's free hand beckoned me forward as the foot holding down the kid got tighter.

"Try anything, kid, and I'll gut you. Come here."

I walked over to the shinobi. His eyes narrowed as I approached and undid the flask. Kojiro eased his foot off the young man's face, enough so he could turn it fully towards me as I poured water down on it. He opened his mouth as the droplets fell, swallowing loudly. Once I felt the flask empty, I took it away and Kojiro got off him, kunai still poised to do harm. The teenager got up slowly to his feet, wiping his mouth and looking warily at Kojiro and me. The old man snorted.

"You won't be able to touch us. Head west along this border and you'll reach a station in a day."

"Whatever, old man." said the shinobi bitterly, flipping Kojiro the middle finger before turning and heading west.

Kojiro place a hand on my shoulder, tense until he saw the last of the boy. And then he heaved a great sigh.

"That was a close call. Let's wait a bit, don't want him to come back and follow us to the Hovel. Odd."

I sent a questioning glance towards him.

"That boy's flak vest…. Suna doesn't have the funds to spare to design a new war uniform and that boy was wearing one. I wonder what there are planning. We can't have another war here, even with that man who dispatched Hanzo leading us."

* * *

><p><em>Make sure to let me know what you think or any questions you have! See you next time.<em>


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